A Father's Prayer
by notawordsmith
Summary: Songfic for Sensei!  Yes the one and only Master Splinter.  Ever wonder what goes on back at the dojo when the boys are out on a dangerous mission?  Wonder no more. I always imagine it's a little like this.  Some SPOV. I think I presume too much.


**A/N**:_A most fitting and beautiful song from Les Miserable, called "Bring Him Home". I personally think Colm Wilkinson sings it the best, but you'll have to google youtube, listen, and judge for yourself. If this song doesn't touch you deep, and make you realize how perfect this is for Sensei, I'll doubt your sanity._

_I'll still love you, but I'll always look at you funny._

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><p><strong><span>A Father's Prayer <span>**

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><p>Michaelangelo.<p>

_Why did I trust that cursed book when naming them? How did I not see the error? How could I have burdened my child with such a fate?_

The heart sick father stopped his frantic pacing and sighed, letting his fears flow out with each forced meditative breath.

His son hadn't been right within himself for weeks. Months if he was going to be truly honest. Michaelangelo's joy had gone, his light had died, the way he moved seemed to have lost the bubbling energy that usually frothed inside of him.

The exicitement was gone. The spark. The want. The need. The love?

Yes. That was it. The love.

The realisation made Splinter's whiskers twitch in anger and his tail swish in frustration.

And what had he done about it? What had he tried to do? Was there any other way, any other path that could have, or should have been chosen to spare his sons a fate such as this?

Shoulders slouched a little more heavily as the burden of this fact settled on him again. He didn't know. The curse of becoming a parent. Being looked up to as all knowing, but in reality being the last to know.

Then it happened. That day. That day to this day and all the days in between. They were now stuck on hold, lives caught in amber, frozen, waiting for the sun to return. To light the way. To thaw.

_Dear everyone_

_When you read this, I will already be long gone._

_I have to leave, I can't stay at home any longer, as much as I would love to tell you why or better yet, stay. I can't. I will miss all of you, please keep my things safe, cause one day I might come back, but I doubt it. You are all great, the best family that a dude could ask for, please don't blame yourselves for me leaving. It is not your fault, it was also my choice and you couldn't have stopped me. I can be very determined when I want to. Please do not come and look for me, because you won't find me. I want you to know that this is the hardest thing that I have ever had to do and I wish that I didn't have to do it, but I need to._

_This letter can't begin to cover everything that I want to say to you but please know that I'm really going to miss all of you. I love you bros._

_Till I see you again_

_Your brother, Mikey_

It hadn't been that long, but it was forever. The day of the note, the neatly made bed and the start of so many unanswered questions. The simply scribbled words had never left Splinter's side. Its wrinkles were now smooth and the folds worn with the constant unfolding, reading and folding again.

Every night. Every night since that day they had looked, hunted, searched, watched, and waited.

He himself had spent each night and day searching the back alleys and streets, the dumpsters, dives and docks. His heart broke and tore to pieces each time a suspicious lump had been found, mending only a little when it turned out to be nothing at all.

But as the days turned into weeks his body failed him more than his spirit ever did. So now he paced the walls of the dojo, his prison, doing the only searching he was capable of.

His heart and soul for answers.

Michaelangelo's room.

The rough wood was soft beneath his hand as he remembered in a instant all the times this door had held his son's touch. Shut in anger, in fear, in joy, in hate, in love.

Now in rememberance.

His room seemed to have a gravitational pull all of it's own. Each night they all came in their own way to pay hommage. Not to the room itself, but to the life that was held within it. The life that would be held in there again.

In time.

Had to believe.

Believe he would be found in time.

He would come home.

How he ended up kneelng on the floor beside Michaelangelo's bed he never knew. Every night it seemed to happen though, in the oppressing silence of the shadowy night.

Alone.

It was as if his body could not take the weight any longer, and at the altar of his son's bed, he could find a little solace. A little comfort. A little prayer.

**God on high.**

**Hear my prayer.**

**In my need. **

**You have always been there. **

Desperate for a choking breath, his head rose up, and drank the loving life of his son's room. The scattered comics. The left behind meals. The drawings so filled with hurt and pain that he had to dip his head in shame at the sight of them.

If only he had shared his own pain? His own confusion at being mutated? Struggling to not only live his own life, but help his surrogate sons?

**He is young.**

**He's afraid.**

**Let him rest.**

**Heaven blessed.**

Was he resting now? Was loved, cared for, comforted, heart at ease and full of peace? Had this turn of events put an end to the pain he felt so strongly at home? Had the heavens blessed him far more than he ever felt blessed in this father's loving eyes? His embrace?

Resting his head heavily on the well worn sheets he could only hope so. For the pain of losing Michaelangelo would be worth the price to see the loving kindness back in his son's eyes.

But.

He wanted to be selfish. So very, very, selfish. The love in his heart yearned and swelled so strongly that the heavy sigh brought forth more heartache than ever.

One of his sons was missing. Michaelangelo was gone. And the possibility of losing another son all too soon in the search? A painful reality.

**Bring him home.**

To hopefully show him this time. To right the wrongs and start again. To be a better father and be all they needed him to be.

**Bring him home**

To have the darkness chased away by the ray of light that was, and always would be Michaelangelo.

**Bring him home**

His son.

**He's like the son I might have known**

**If God had granted me a son.**

The bonds of family had started out all too new and confusing for him. But so very needed and wanted. Sons? Father? Family? Such wonderful concepts, he was eager to learn. Such fate and follies to grant him such a wonderful gift were the point of many meditations and musings.

Were they of his own blood? His own species? His own kind? No, but it wasn't the point. It didn't matter, if his son's sheets, now stained with this rat's tears were anything to go by.

He was their father. They, his sons.

**The summers die, one by one.**

**How soon they fly, on and on.**

They were what now? Sixteen? Seventeen? Twenty? The time had seemed to flash by in an instant, yet remain the same. They were all growing up, he knew, but their childish insecurities remained. Caught between boyhood and man, between the harsh realities of being a ninja and an innocent child.

Had he taught them enough? Had there been too much thought on the darker side of life that Michaelangelo felt suffocated, his light being snuffed out, that he desperately needed to find the sun again, somewhere new?

**And I am old.**

**And wil be gone.**

_Too old. Too young. Too soon, and too late to be thinking such thoughts now that the chance has passed you silly old rat!_

The small angry remark spat in his brain and made his misery all the more fresh and raw. Take away the light and what is left? This dark, hollow corpse. Talk only of the art of war and suffering? The light dies far more easily and painfully than his tired old bones.

But he felt it. Every day as his muscles hardened a little more and refused to bend. His stamina waning, his eyesight failing, but his memories remaining.

Life. That's all he wanted them to see, as he held onto the sheets now, clinging for some hope, some shread of sanity. Something to anchor him away from the dark thought of death that shadowed his every footstep.

Fond memories and happy lives he would surely beg from the gods now, if only he could have his precious Michealangelo back in his arms again. Safe and sound.

His family. Whole.

**Bring him peace.**

**Bring him joy.**

**He is young.**

**He is only a boy.**

Perhaps that is what forced Michaelangelo to leave? To seach for peace away from his brothers? His father? Those that loved him the most? Had they taken the joy from his precious son's heart?

His body crumpled in on itself at the thought. The memories of recent fighting and tension, hurtful looks that cut as deep as any remark filled his soul wth pain.

The slamming of doors. The bitter rage. The confusion, the terrible, pitiful confusion that replaced the stunning blue brilliance in Michaelangelo's eyes.

So young. Too young, to be placing the burdens of war, violence and the ways of the ninja upon them. Perhaps that had been the mistake? Could it be taken back? Would they give it back freely anyway?

So desperate were they to become men, that they had forgotten the precious gift being a child could bring.

Had to find a way to teach them. To make them understand.

If only they would come home.

**You can take**

**You can give.**

**Let him be.**

**Let him live.**

_Take it all. Have it all. Just give me my son back. Safe. Alive. Whole. Well._

_Take the confusion from his soul. The cloud from his eyes. The burden from his heart. The madness from his mind. _

_Give him back his joy, his love, his understanding that as much as he needs us, we need him infinitely more. Give him the understanding to know that in his weakness, we see his strengths. That in his childishness, we see maturity beyond his years. That in his innocence, we see a wisdom that outstrips us all._

_Let him be, hands of fate that wrestle with his heart and mind so, that make him worry and wonder and cry in the night from the beast that lurks in the shadows of his despair._

_Let him live._

**If I die,**

**Let me die.**

The tears of doubt and fear soaked him to the skin, drenched his fur, and pooled beneath him on the blankets where he laid his weary head, not having enough strength to even lift it now.

He prayed with all his might for an exchange to be made. One life for another. A father's for his son. Splinter's for Michaelangelo.

It seemed a fair exchange is his father's maddened mind. So desperate was he to regain what was lost, to ease the gaping hole his son had left behind.

Surely the pain of death could only be a comfort to the pain of not knowing. Not knowing where Michaelangelo or any of his sons where at that moment.

**Let him live.**

There was nothing on earth, the skies above or in the depths below Splinter would not do for his son. To show him he loved him. Cared. Understood. If only he could talk to him and explain. To help his soul regain its life as well as his body. Splinter knew that his death would be a worthless exchange, for something so precious.

It was probably why god rarely took it.

But he would give it. Freely, openly and honestly. If only. If only his sons could find Michaelangelo.

**Bring him home.**

His whiskers twitched and his ears swiviled at the sounds of footsteps coming closer to the lair door. His heart stopped and his breath caught as he tried in vain to count them and decide if he heard three sets of footsteps? Or four?

**Bring him home.**

Too weary to have his heart raised and crushed again, he stilled, caught in the perfect moment, the precise moment when all fears and joys are caught in an instant, before the truth was revealed.

Had they found him? Was there a joyful mood in the air? Had life and love and the wonders of childhood glee washed back into the lair in a rush?

He stilled his heart, even though the rapid pace of it wanted to believe it so badly

**Bring him home.**

"Master!" A playful whoop filled the silences of fear and doubt and soothed Splinter's mind more than the call of his name ever could.

"We found him Sensei!"

"We found Michaelangelo."

"And brought him home,"

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><p><strong>AN:**_ I've been sitting on this for awhile now, why I decided to release it now? *shrugs* I can't really explain. I miss writing, I miss it a lot, but for some reason the flesh is willing, but the spirit is weak, the inspiration is gone, you could say my light and spark have been snuffed out too, and I want it back._

_I want it back so bad._

_So inspiration? Sensei? Guys? Leo? Raph? Mikey and Donny? Think you can bring him home? I need a little help._

_Rant, rave, review. I'd love to hear what you think._


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